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ADDRESS BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
L OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
AS HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE 
THIRD CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RE- 
PUBLICS AT RIO DE JANEIRO, JULY 31, 
1906. ^ ^ ^ # 



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ADDRESS BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
_ L OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
AS HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE 
THIRD CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RE- 
PUBLICS AT RIO DE JANEIRO, JULY 31, 
1906. ^ ^ ^ ^ 



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ADDRESS BY MR. ELIHU ROOT. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Third Con- 
ference of American Republics : 
I beg you to believe that I highly appreciate 
and thank you for the honor you do me. 

I bring from my country a special greeting to 
her elder sisters in the civilization of America. 

Unlike as we are in many respects, we are 
alike in this, that we are all engaged under new 
conditions, and free from the traditional forms 
and limitations of the Old World in working out 
the same problem of popular self-government. 

It is a difficult and laborious task for each of 
us. Not in one generation nor in one century 
can the effective control of a superior sovereign, 
so long deemed necessary to government, be 
rejected and effective self-control by the gov- 
erned be perfected in its place. The first fruits 
of democracy are; many of them crude and un- 
lovely; its mistakes are many, its partial failures 
many, its sins not few. Capacity for self-gov- 
ernment does not come to man by nature. It is 

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an art to be learned, and it is also an expression 
of character to be developed among all the thou- 
sands of men who exercise popular sovereignty. 

(To reach the goal towards which we are 
pressing forward, the governing multitude must 
first acquire knowledge that comes from uni- 
versal education, wisdom that follows practical 
experience, personal independence and self- 
respect befitting men who acknowledge no 
superior, self-control to replace that external 
control which a democracy rejects, respect for 
law, obedience to the lawful expressions of the 
public will, consideration for the opinions and 
interests of others equally entitled to a voice in 
the state, loyalty to that abstract conception — 
one's country — as inspiring as that loyalty to 
personal sovereigns which has so illumined 
the pages of history, subordination of personal 
interests to the public good, love of justice and 
mercy, of liberty and order. AH these we must 
seek by slow and patient effort; and of how 
many shortcomings in his own land and among 
his own people each one of us is conscious. 

(Yet no student of our times can fail to see 
that not America alone but the whole civilized 

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world is swinging away from its old govern- 
mental moorings and intrusting the fate of its 
civilization to the capacity of the popular mass 
to govern.] By this pathway mankind is to 
travel, withersoever it leads. Upon the success 
of this our great undertaking the hope of 
humanity depends. 

Nor can we fail to see that the world makes 
substantial progress towards more perfect popu- 
lar self-government. 

I believe it to be true that, viewed against 
the background of conditions a century, a gen- 
eration, a decade ago, government in my own 
country has advanced, in the intelligent partici- 
pation of the great mass of the people, in the 
fidelity and honesty with which they are rep- 
resented, in respect for law, in obedience to the 
dictates of a sound morality, and in effectiveness 
and purity of administration. 

Nowhere in the world has this progress been 
more marked than in Latin America. Out of 
the wrack of Indian fighting and race conflicts 
and civil wars, strong and stable governments 
have arisen. Peaceful succession in accord with 
the people's will has replaced the forcible seiz- 

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ure of power permitted by the people's indiffer- 
ence. Loyalty to country, its peace, its dignity, 
its honor, has risen above partizanship for indi- 
vidual leaders. The rule of law supersedes 
the rule of man. Property is protected and 
the fruits of enterprise are secure. Individual 
liberty is respected. Continuous public policies 
are followed ; national faith is held sacred. 
Progress has not been equal everywhere, but 
there has been progress everywhere. The 
movement in the right direction is general. 
The right tendency is not exceptional; it is con- 
tinental. The present affords just cause for 
satisfaction ; the future is bright with hope. 
-j. Its is not by national isolation that these re- 
sults have been accomplished, or that this prog- 
ress can be continued./ No nation can live unto 
itself alone and continue to live. Each nation's 
growth is a part of the development of the race. 
There may be leaders and there may be laggards, 
but no nation can long continue very far in ad- 
vance of the general progress of mankind, and 
no nation that is not doomed to extinction can 
remain very far behind. It is with nations as it 
is with individual men; intercourse, association, 

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correction of egotism by the influence of other's 
judgment, broadening of views by the experi- 
ence and thought of equals, acceptance of the 
moral standards of a community the desire for 
whose good opinion lends a sanction to the 
rules of right conduct — these are the conditions 
of growth in civilization^^A people whose minds 
are not open to the lessons of the world's 
progress, whose spirits are not stirred by the 
aspirations and the achievements of humanity 
struggling the world over for liberty and justice, 
must be left behind by civilization in its steady 
and beneficent advance. 

. To promote this mutual interchange and 
assistance between the American republics, en- 
gaged in the same great task, inspired by the 
same purpose, and professing the same princi- 
ples, 1 understand to be the function of the 
American Conference now in session. There is 
not one of all our countries that can not benefit 
the others; there is not one that can not receive 
benefit from the others; there is not one that 
will not gain by the prosperity, the peace, the 
happiness of all. 

According to your program no great and 

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impressive single thing is to be done by you ; 
no political questions are to be discussed ; no 
controversies are to be settled ; no judgment is 
to be passed upon the conduct of any state : 
but many subjects are to be considered which 
afford the possibility of removing barriers to in- 
tercourse; of ascertaining for the common benefit 
what advances have been made by each nation 
in knowledge, in experience, in enterprise, in the 
solution of difficult questions of government, and 
in ethical standards ; of perfecting our knowl- 
edge of each other; and of doing away with 
the misconceptions, the misunderstandings, and 
the resultant prejudices that are such fruitful 
sources of controversy. 

And there are some subjects in the program 
which invite discussion that may lead the Ameri- 
can republics towards an agreement upon prin- 
ciples, the general practical application of which 
can come only in the future through long and 
patient effort. Some advance at least may be 
made here towards the complete rule of justice 
and peace among nations in lieu of force and war. 

The association of so many eminent men 
from all the Republics, leaders of opinion in 



their own homes; the friendships that will arise 
among you; the habit of temperate and kindly 
discussion of matters of common interest; the 
ascertainment of common sympathies and aims; 
the dissipation of misunderstandings; the exhi- 
bition to all the American peoples of this 
peaceful and considerate method of conferring 
upon international questions— this alone, quite 
irrespective of the resolutions you may adopt 
and the conventions you may sign, will mark 
a substantial advance in the direction of inter- 
national good understanding. 

These beneficent results the Government and 
the people of the United States of America 
greatly desire. !We wish for no victories but 
those of peace; for no territory except our own; 
for no sovereignty except the sovereignty over 
ourselves. We deem the independence and 
equal rights of the smallest and weakest member 
of the family of nations entitled to as much 
respect as those of the greatest empire, and we 
deem the observance of that respect the chief 
guaranty of the weak against the oppression of 
the strong. We neither claim nor desire any 
rights, or privileges, or powers that we do not 

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freely concede to every American republic.- j We 
wish to increase our prosperity, to expand our 
trade, to grow in wealth, in wisdom, and in 
spirit, but our conception of the true way to 
accomplish this is not to pull down others and 
profit by their ruin, but to help all friends to 
a common prosperity and a common growth, 
that we may all become greater and stronger 
together. 

Within a few months, for the first time the 
recognized possessors of every foot of soil upon 
the American continents can be and 1 hope will 
be represented with the acknowledged rights 
of equal sovereign states in the great World 
Congress at The Hague. This will be the 
world's formal and final acceptance of the dec- 
laration that no part of the American continents 
is to be deemed subject to colonization. Let us 
pledge ourselves to aid each other in the full 
performance of the duty to humanity which that 
accepted declaration implies; so that in time the 
weakest and most unfortunate of our republics 
may come to march with equal step by the side 
of the stronger and more fortunate. ' Let us help 
each other to show that for all the races of men 

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the liberty for which we have fought and labored 
is the twin sister of justice and peace/) Let us 
unite in creating and maintaining and making 
effective an all-American public opinion, whose 
power shall influence international conduct and 
prevent international wrong, and narrow the 
causes of war, and forever preserve our free 
lands from the burden of such armaments as 
are massed behind the frontiers of Europe, and 
bring us ever nearer to the perfection of ordered 
liberty. So shall come security and prosperity, 
production and trade, wealth, learning, the arts, 
and happiness for us all. 

Not in a single conference, nor by a single ■'^ 
effort, can very much be done. You labor more 
for the future than for the present; but if the 
right impulse be given, if the right tendency be 
established, the work you do here will go on 
among all the millions of people in the Ameri- 
can continents long after your final adjournment, 
long after your lives, with incalculable benefit to 
all our beloved countries, which may it please 
God to continue free and independent and 
happy for ages to come. 

II 



LlBRftRV OF CONGRtJJ 



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